My, your, his, her...

French possessive adjectives

Possessive adjectives are words that say to whom or to what something belongs. In English we have seven possessive adjectives:

This is my house.

This is your house. (When you're talking to one person)

This is your house. (When you're talking to more than one person.)

This is his house.

This is her house.

This is their house.

This is its house.

In French there are few more of these words to juggle, and which one you use depends on a few different factors ...

Is the noun masculine or feminine?

You might remember that all French nouns are either masculine or feminine. Even things like tables and lamps. The upshot of this is that French possessive adjectives will change depending on the gender of the noun they're describing. Like this:

Again, you can't tell the gender of the child in this example, because the possessive adjective is only interested in the gender of the noun it's describing. (And obviously "father" is a masculine noun, while "mother" is a feminine noun.) Tricky, right?

Times when noun gender doesn't matter

There are a couple of times when it doesn't matter if you're talking about a masculine noun or a feminine noun, the possessive adjective will always be the same.

1: When it comes before a vowel

Since the feminine possessive adjectives (ma, ta, sa) end in vowels, it would be quite awkward to have to say a word beginning with a vowel right afterwards. (Try it yourself: It's like trying to say "a apple".)

To avoid this inelegant situation, any time there's a noun that starts with a vowel — regardless of its real gender — you'll use the masculine possessive adjective, since they all end in an N, and this makes it easier to run the words together smoothly.

l'orange

orange (f)

my orange

mon orange

2: When using "our", "your", or "their"

The possessive adjectives for "our", "their", group "your" and formal "your" are the same regardless of the gender of the noun. So that makes things a little simpler, right?